A crew member from ’28 Years Later’ shut Down Cillian Murphy’s zombie rumor.
One shot in the trailer shows a zombie, or infected person, who looks a lot like Murphy. This made people wonder if it was his character, Jim, from the movie. It was a reasonable guess, considering how much time has passed since the first movie.
However, having an actor like Murphy return just to play a zombie seemed odd. Also, a photo of him as the human character Jim surfaced while the film was being shot earlier this year, though it could have been for a flashback scene.
“For anyone saying this is Cillian Murphy, I’m afraid it isn’t. I worked on the film up in Northumberland when they were filming this exact scene. This scene is awesome though,” a crew member recently wrote in a post on X.
In an interview, Sony’s Tom Rothman confirmed that Murphy, who was already announced as an executive producer, might reprise his role from ’28 Days Later.’ He said, “Yes, but in a surprising way and in a way that grows, let me put it that way. This is (director) Danny (Boyle) at his best, combined with a very commercial genre, like we had with Edgar Wright and Baby Driver. Sometimes when you put a real signature director into a commercial arena, it elevates it.”
Actor Ralph Fiennes shared the basic plot in an interview with IndieWire earlier this year, explaining, “It centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.”
’28 Years Later’ is directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It is produced by Andrew Macdonald, Peter Rice, Bernard Bellew, Boyle, and Garland. Murphy is an executive producer. The cast also includes Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, and Alfie Williams. The movie will be released in theaters on June 20, 2025.
